An international research team led by Assistant Professor Yusuke Onoda of the Graduate School of Agriculture, Kyoto University has collected and scrutinized the results of research on a wide variety of plants surveyed around the world, and the durable structures and cell walls required for longevity are photosynthesized. For the first time in the world, we have clarified the mechanism that reduces efficiency.
There are a wide variety of plants around us, such as deciduous trees that shed their leaves in winter from weeds on the side of the road, and evergreen trees that have year-round leaves.Generally, the longer the leaves are, the thicker they are, and many tissues perform photosynthesis, but the photosynthetic rate is not high.This rule that "the longer the leaves are, the less efficient the photosynthesis is" is common throughout the world, but the cause was unknown.
This time, researchers from Japan, Australia, Germany, and Estonia have aggregated plant data from around the world, especially data on leaf anatomy and nutrient distribution information, and built a new database of more than 1000 species in total.
As a result of the analysis, it was found that since the long-lived leaves have many cell walls, a large amount of nutrients are distributed to the cell walls, and the distribution ratio to the photosynthetic protein required for photosynthesis is reduced.Furthermore, it was revealed that the thick cell wall reduces the efficiency of carbon dioxide supply to chloroplasts and reduces the efficiency of photosynthesis.In other words, a robust structure and an efficient photosynthesis system cannot be compatible.In the evolutionary history of plants, short-lived plants (grass, etc.) that perform high photosynthesis in a short period of time and plants that have low photosynthesis efficiency but live long (evergreen trees) due to the natural choice of increasing the efficiency of photosynthesis or living long. Etc.).
This study clarifies the principle of leaf trait diversity and helps to understand plant diversity.It is also expected to contribute to predicting changes in vegetation and as basic knowledge in plant breeding.
